A cross-sectional study of the knowledge, attitude and practice of cervical cancer among the staff nurses working in rural private medical college of Lucknow

Abstract

Objective: 1. To study the knowledge about carcinoma cervix and its screening method. 2. To survey the attitude and practice of screening methods among the nurses. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in T.S. Mishra medical college & hospital, Lucknow in the month of January and February 2021. Total 100 participants from the nursing staff, who wished to participate in our study, were chosen randomly. A self administered, structured and pretested questionnaire based on general characteristic, knowledge, attitude and actual practice of nursing staff was used to gather information related to screening of cervical cancer. Result: In our study 85% participants had knowledge that for screening of carcinoma cervix, pap smear is a type of screening modality and most of them(80%) are agreed upon that chronic vaginal discharge could be a cause of carcinoma cervix and 55% knows that HPV is a risk factor for carcinoma cervix pap smear can detect cervical cancer. About 40% had knowledge that cervical cancer can present as postcoital bleeding and 55% of the respondents were well aware that HPV infection is a risk factor for cervical carcinoma. Only 30% of the participants had screened themselves for cervical cancer in past. Conclusion: Our study shows that the knowledge about carcinoma cervix screening is good among nursing staff but they did not know how to implement this knowledge for screening of patients. Healthcare givers should be trained and promoted so that they can help in community screening and spread of knowledge of this screening facility for prevention of carcinoma cervix in the community.